National correspondent for MLB.com. If you appreciate blogging, baseball, pitching, speed and defense, welcome in!

You, too, can take pictures just like this one.

One of the new promotions the Astros are offering this year is the “Pre-game Field Pass,” which in layman’s terms means gaining access to the area right behind the Astros cage while the team goes through its daily stretching and batting practice.

For $75, you’ll watch one hour of batting practice up close, from a VIP viewing area behind home plate. It’s prime positioning for pictures as the Astros players get ready for the game.

It’s pretty much the same vantage point as I have on a daily basis, which has produced pictures like these:

Pre-game field passes are offered for every home night game — the team normally does not take BP before day games — and must be purchased online. Check it out here.

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New feature: “homemade” videos!

Eventually, videos from the day-to-day happenings of your Astros will be featured regularly on my Footnotes landing page. Right now, the process is taking a while. Once we figure out exactly how to edit, upload and post the videos (and by we, I mean, well, me), the video section will be a constant flow of activity.

Slowly but surely, however, the All-Star videos are being rolled out. We’ve posted two, and most of the content was generated by Hunter Pence, who took my camera pretty much everywhere he went during his two-day jaunt to St. Louis.

In the first video, titled “Pence Media Day,” Hunter conducts interviews with some of his favorite opponents, including Ted Lilly (“Do you know what it’s like to face you?”), Orlando Hudson (“Now that you’ve moved from Arizona to L.A., do you do any surfing?”) and his own teammate, fellow All-Star Miguel Tejada. You’ll notice Tejada promises he’ll get a RallyHawk if the Astros make it to the postseason this year.

We still laugh about the second video, titled “All-Star Workout.” In addition to some batting practice shots, there’s also footage of Pence’s bizarre encounter with Bobby Knight, and, inadvertently, Tony La Russa. Earlier that day, Knight struck up a conversation with Pence but was cut off when La Russa sort of interrupted and ushered Knight into his office. What you see in this video is both semi-apologizing to Pence, who just shrugged, laughed and said, “This is something I won’t forget — Bobby Knight and Tony La Russa arguing over where to talk to me.”

I’m working on three more All-Star videos that will hopefully be posted soon. In the meantime, enjoy the first two.

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As part of their on-going celebration of 10 seasons at Minute Maid Park, the Astros are posting memories from some of the decade’s most notable figures on their blog. Today, we have former manager Phil Garner’s favorite memory, which involves Roger Clemens and the epic 18-inning game that clinched the Division Series in 2005.

And that leads us to the latest installment of “Who’s in Dennis’s Chair?” Why it’s none other than Scrap Iron, who stopped by the clubhouse a few days ago to say hi to the old gang.

For a $29.95 (that’s under $30!) annual fee you can view all the blog content, including behind the scene photos and the entire library of player video cams. But wait there’s more, if you join right now we will include a discount of 10% off all Astros merchandise, just type in ASTR10 at checkout. We accept Paypal!

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